Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield ready to take helm of International Space Station

Max Harrold, THE GAZETTE09.14.2012

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, left, with his crewmates Roman Romanenko (Russia) and Tom Marshburn (USA) pose in front of the Soyuz simulator in Star City, Russia.Chris Hadfield
/ The Canadian Space Agency

Attired in a training version of his Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield prepares to be submerged in the waters of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas for spacewalk training. Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the $100 billion International Space Station during the latter part of a six-month mission to the orbital space lab that he is scheduled to start on Dec. 5, 2012. Photo credit: Jiri Silha, NASA

How exactly does one train to be in charge of the $100 billion International Space Station, the most elaborate multinational engineering and scientific vehicle in history?

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who is set to become the first Canadian to command the space station during the last half of a six-month stint scheduled to start Dec. 5, gave reporters a good idea Thursday during a news conference broadcast from the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Houston, Tex. to the Canadian Space Agency in Longueuil.

What will he do if there’s a meteorite spinning toward the space lab, or if there’s a fire? What if a crew member goes nuts?

Hadfield’s readiness seems to come from a blend of his countless repetitions of space survival skills and a Zen-like perspective about where he is headed and what it all means.

“The three leading dangers that we (face on the space station) are a depressurization, a fire or a toxic atmosphere caused by some other cause,” Hadfield, 53, explained in a perfectly calm voice as his crew mates, Roman Romanenko of Russia and Tom Marshburn of the United States, sat next to him.

“We train in great detail as well as with enough repetition (so) that it becomes sort of automatic.”

In another Canadian first, Hadfield, a former jet fighter pilot and a veteran of two space missions on the now-defunct U.S. space shuttle, will be the co-pilot on the Soyuz, a cramped but reliable spacecraft whose original design dates to 1967. Hadfield has learned a fair amount of Russian since the controls on the spacecraft are in that language.

“Things can happen the quickest (in the Soyuz) and we really have to be able to react to” them, he said.

Hadfield said he and his crewmates have been working together for the last nine months after “years” of separate preparations in underwater simulators and high-tech mock-ups of the space station in different places around the world.

The Soyuz simulators the crew has worked on in Russia fill up with smoke to simulate a fire, Hadfield said. “We’re wearing our pressure suits and smoke starts pouring out of our instrument panel. You immediately have to react, and shut off all your power sources, get your masks to get on the ship’s oxygen. The smoke is so thick you can’t even see the instrument panel in front of you. It’s a really high fidelity simulation so that we end up (developing) all the right responses.”

Hadfield said he has a lot of “one-pager” notes with mental reminders.“It’s true for the Canadarm2 and spacewalking. (You try) to keep it all in your brain for that length of time so that when the moment comes you can remember what that instructor told you that day in Sevastopol, Ukraine that makes all the difference between success, failure or life or death.”

Hadfield, who was raised on a farm in Milton, Ont., said it is “hugely exciting and a great honour to be asked to be the commander of the International Space Station, from this Canadian kid’s point of view. It’s just a dream come true.”

He added that this month marks the 50th anniversary of Canada’s first satellite in space. “We were the third nation on Earth to have an indigenous satellite.” His mission is an evolution of Canada’s contribution to space exploration, he said.

Hadfield paid homage to U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong — the first human to set foot on the moon, in 1969 — and noted that it was Armstrong’s memorial on Thursday in Washington, D.C.

Hadfield was 9 years old when he watched the moon landing on TV. “To see something that was not only really hard, but also completely optional” was truly inspiring for humanity, he said.

“We weren’t doing this because (we) were forced to,” he said. “We were doing this because we just barely could for the very first time. It took us right to the limits and brought out the very best of what people can do.” Hadfield — like many others — decided that night that he wanted to become an astronaut.

Asked by The Gazette if his training for the mission gives him a different take on certain Earthly issues, such as violence in Libya and or the prospect of separatism in Quebec, Hadfield said it’s important to look at the big picture.

“I try not to overreact or to under-react,” he said. “That’s true for political events, for people misbehaving (and) doing things that people just shouldn’t do or natural disasters that happen or the wonderful achievements that happen.”

“One of the great benefits that we have of leaving the Earth and going around our entire planet in about the time it takes to run this press conference is that it does give you a different perspective. You see the world as one place.

“You’re all the same family and you need to figure out how to make it all work together.”

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Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield ready to take helm of International Space Station

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